First Olympic eSports Coming in 2025

After years of eSports building itself up with game specific tournaments and huge moneymaking events, an official Olympics has been announced for 2025. This is set to take place in Saudi Arabia and will feature a variety of different games in partnership with Epic, Capcom and Riot Games- some of the biggest names in the eSports space. Cities and dates have yet to be revealed but this news alone is huge for eSports who, just a few years ago, were struggling to be taken seriously by the worldwide sports community.

In the announcement, president of the International Olympics Commmittee stated the following:

"We are very fortunate to be able to work with the Saudi NOC on the Olympic Esports Games because it has great – if not unique – expertise in the field of esports with all its stakeholders. The Olympic Esports Games will greatly benefit from this experience."

Its expected that more news regarding the event will be announced within the coming months. This will include the games that are actually being shown off, and if these are going to exclusively be from the likes of Capcom, Epic and Riot.

Some fans have pointed out the location of the event as a bold and peculiar choice- especially considering Saudi Arabia’s awful history when it comes to human rights. This is especially an issue when you consider that a substantial portion of the eSports community is LGBTQ+, meaning that they’ll either be banned or, more likely, refuse to go out of concerns for their safety. More detailed information and coverage on this remains to be seen but, with the current discourse on the internet, fans are less than enthused with both the location and the announcement of the event itself.